Chapter 5
FIVE
DAWSON
The shower had helped but the hour of sleep hadn't.
Parker arrived ten minutes after me, his hair still damp, looking marginally more human than he had at dawn. He'd shaved and I missed the scruff. He caught my eye across the newsroom and smiled and my wolf perked up.
I looked away before I could do something silly like smile back.
I had to figure out what to do about this instinct that told me he was my mate. Rejecting it wasn't an option. Well no, I could but I'd be in pain for the rest of my life.
"Okay, people." Isla's voice cut through the chaos of the newsroom. "We're looking at sustained winds of 145 miles per hour at landfall. The storm surge could reach fifteen feet in coastal areas."
The next few hours jumbled together. We gave updates every thirty minutes and the evacuation orders expanded to include the entire coastal region.
The governor declared a state of emergency.
And through it all, Parker and I worked in tandem, finding a rhythm that was almost effortless despite the dire circumstances.
But while my mind was on the storm, I couldn't keep images of Parker from popping to the forefront. Pics of his stubble before he'd shaved, the tiny smile as he tapped on the computer and his strong jaw that needed to be stroked and kissed filled my head.
"You're doing that thing again," Zara said during a commercial break.
"What?"
"Where you watch him like he might disappear if you look away."
I didn't dignify that with a response.
By 2 PM, the outer bands of the hurricane had arrived. Rain lashed against the studio windows, and the wind had picked up enough that we could hear it howling even through the reinforced walls. The parking lot was flooding and the water was creeping steadily higher.
"We should show people what it looks like out there," Parker noted during our next break. "Let me see the conditions and not just satellite imagery and radar."
"Absolutely not." I didn't even have to think about it. "It's too dangerous." I couldn't let this human venture outside.
"I've done live shots in bad weather before."
"Not in a Category four hurricane, you haven't." I pulled up the wind readings on my phone. "Sustained winds are already at sixty miles per hour, with gusts over eighty. You'd be knocked off your feet."
"We can do it from the covered entrance. I'll stay close to the building."
"Parker, no"
"People need to see this, Dawson." His determined expression told me my warnings were having no effect. "They need to understand why we've been telling them to evacuate."
"They don't have to see your dead body before they understand."
"I'm not going to die from being outside for three minutes."
"You could." My wolf was already pacing and agitated by the mere suggestion of Parker putting himself in danger. "The answer is no."
"Good thing I'm not asking for permission." He was already walking toward Isla's office.
I wanted to grab him and prevent him from doing this reckless, foolish act. But we were surrounded by crew members, and I couldn't explain why my protective instincts were yelling at me to keep Parker safe.
Five minutes later, Isla had approved it. They'd do a quick live shot from the covered entrance. It'd be two minutes maximum with Parker secured by a safety line attached to the building. It was still dangerous, but at least there were precautions.
I watched from inside as they set up with my wolf clawing beneath my skin. He repeated over and over how I had to stop Parker but I explained I was powerless. Thanks to the storm, we'd missed the full moon run so my beast was harder to control than usual.
Parker was getting mic'd up and the rain was already soaking through his jacket. The wind was stronger than the readings suggested, and I could see him bracing against it even under the overhang.
"He'll be fine," Zara said beside me. "We've done this dozens of times."
Not in a hurricane, I wanted to say. Not when every instinct I had was telling me something was going to go wrong.
The live shot started. Parker did his thing and he was professional and composed as ever, even as the wind whipped around him. He was explaining the storm surge and pointing toward the flooded parking lot, when a gust hit that was stronger than the others.
The wind caught Parker mid-sentence. He stumbled, trying to regain his balance, but his foot slipped on the wet concrete.
I watched it happen as if in slow motion.
The safety line snapped. Maybe it had been frayed by debris and suddenly Parker was falling into the churning floodwater that was already moving fast enough to sweep someone away.
My wolf took over before I could think or give him instructions.
I was running, shoving through the emergency exit. The door slammed behind me, and I threw myself around the corner of the building, out of sight of the cameras and crew. The cold rain hit me like a wall, but I was already shifting, my wolf surging forward with single-minded purpose.
We had to save our mate.
The shift took seconds. My clothes ripped away and I sprouted a tail and a muzzle.
I was on four legs and my wolf tracked Parker's scent even through the rain and floodwater.
My beast rounded the building and hit the water at full speed.
Parker was struggling, trying to keep his head above water as the current pulled him toward the parking lot's drainage system.
My wolf swam hard and I urged him on, begging him not to let our mate die. When my beast reached him, his eyes were wide with panic and confusion, but he grabbed onto my wolf's fur without hesitation. My wolf was huge and he used every ounce of strength to fight the current.
It took forever to drag him back to shallower water, where we were close enough to the building that he could grab the railing and pull himself up. He was coughing, gasping, but alive.
My beast backed away before anyone else tried to catch him but he didn't want to leave our mate.
I convinced him we couldn't let the human population know shifters existed and he agreed reluctantly though he wanted to stay close to Parker.
The rain and chaos provided cover, and we paddled around the side of the building before shifting back.
I grabbed the emergency clothes I kept in my truck which were similar enough to what I wore every day that no one would notice I'd changed. My hands shook as I dressed, adrenaline and fear and fury all mixing together into something that made me want to shift again and run.
By the time I got back inside through a side entrance, Parker was already there. Soaking wet, wrapped in blankets, looking close to death.
"Dawson." He looked up when he saw me and I studied his pale face, wanting to kiss it and take him far from here. "Did you see it? A wolf? It saved me. There was a wolf in the floodwater and I held onto it."
"You could have died." The words came out harsh, all the fear transforming into anger. "That was the most reckless thing I've ever seen." I longed to run my hands over him to make sure he was unhurt but I was consumed with anger and also scared that touching him was inappropriate.
But my hand moved of its own accord, skimming over his jaw while checking for injuries before I snatched it back.
He shivered, caught off guard by my tone. "I know, but—"
"But nothing. You wanted to show viewers the conditions? Congratulations. You showed them what happens when someone ignores safety protocols during a hurricane."
"The safety line broke."
"It broke because you shouldn't have been out there in the first place.
" I was aware of people staring, of Isla approaching with a worried expression, but I couldn't stop.
Fear and relief had coiled themselves inside me and were bursting out like a machine gun firing.
"You could have been killed, Parker. For what?
A three-minute live shot?" I was yelling and I should have been holding him. What was wrong with me?
Hurt flashing across his face before he locked it down. "I was doing my job."
"It doesn't require you to get yourself killed for ratings."
"That's not what I was doing." He stopped. "You know what? I don't need this right now. I nearly drowned. Maybe save the lecture for later."
"Perhaps if you'd listened to me earlier, that wouldn't have happened."
We stared at each other and the tension was thick enough to cut. Parker's hands were still shaking and he was dripping water onto the floor, and I needed to pull him close and make sure he was really okay. But the fury was easier than the fear, so I let it burn.
"Parker, you should get into dry clothes," Isla told him. "Dawson, a word?"
Parker left without looking at me. I watched him go, my wolf whining at the distance and how our mate was walking away upset.
"What the hell was that?" Isla yelled.
"That was me pointing out that he nearly got himself killed." I wondered if she was about to fire me but I didn't care. I just wanted Parker to be okay.
"That was you tearing into him thirty seconds after he nearly died. What's going on with you two?"
Everything and nothing. My wolf had revealed himself to save a human who didn't know shifters existed, and now I couldn't explain why I was so angry without exposing secrets that weren't mine to tell.
"Nothing. I'm going back to the weather center."
I spent the next hour staring at models I wasn't processing while my wolf was still agitated beneath my skin.
The storm was making landfall, and Parker and I should have been working together like we had been all day.
I hovered nervously not far from his desk multiple times, wanting to apologize but he ignored me and my courage failed.
Instead of working with me, Parker did his updates with one of the other meteorologists, and I stayed in my corner like the grumpy so-and-so everyone thought I was.
My phone buzzed. A text from Tony.
Was that you? It was hard to see but it looked like you.
I'd shifted in public, in broad daylight and in front of cameras that had may have caught at least something on film. And I'd done it to save a human who drove me crazy but my wolf and I understood he was my mate and part of our pack. Me, my wolf and Parker, not that he knew any of that.
Yes. It had to be done.
The storm raged outside, but the real disaster was inside. In the space between Parker and me, where partnership had turned to silence and all the things I couldn't say sat like a heavy weight on my chest.
I'd saved his life and couldn't even tell him it was me. And that made everything worse.